Are you falling out of love with football?

[rhroyal]

There are so many reasons right now. Deluded crap from the club every day talking about getting back into the Premiership. Seeing money talk more.

But it's going beyond this football club. The whole France v Ireland thing has really riled me. I understand replaying the game is opening a massive can of worms and unwise. However all the comments surrounding it are infuriating. Robbie Keane and Damien Duff saying that Henry shouldn't be blamed if the ref didn't see it. Has football come to this? Are people willing to go on TV after one of the highest profile ref errors and state "It's okay to cheat if nobody sees"? The there's FIFA. They have done nothing. No punishment for Henry, no introduction of video technology or extra officials. It could very easily happen again. The message is once again clear. IT'S OKAY TO CHEAT IF YOU GET AWAY WITH IT. It shouldn't be, and I'm dreading how much worse football's integrity will be in the next generation. The youngsters are seeing this message from their heroes right now, they'll all become a load of filthy cheats as a consequence.

So I'm left with a game where my club is stuck in a massive rut of mediocrity, and a game where cheating is utterly acceptable with little hope of the trend being reversed. It's a chore following football now, it used to be a pleasure. Maybe an awesome world cup this summer can reignite the love I once felt.

[Handsome Man]

My love of football is directly related to how well Reading are doing.

After the Middlebrough game I wasn't remotely interested in football for the next three weeks. I watched match of the day and had the sky games on, but couldn't be bothered with the champions league at all.

Now Reading are doing better, I am much more interested again. I even watched the Ireland game and saw the handball, and looked forward to the Carling Cup games this week.

Life's too short to worry about Henry and agents. Football has always been full of cheats and money-grabbers. Kenny Dalglish loved a dive and Brian Clough tax returns were allegedly a work of fiction. Football was great then and it is now.

[floyd__streete]

Football is a bit like Christmas. As a child it thrills and excites you, but into adulthood you become weary and cynical towards it, the hype gets tiresome. That said, deep down you still enjoy it for what it is - but it is just nothing like as magical as it felt when you were a lad.

[Wax Jacket]

top-end football's been stuck in a shitheaded corporate rut for some time now. hurrah for the Championship.

[Terminal Boardom]

There is way too much cynicism in football. It has ceased to be the sport for hooligans played by gentlemen. It is purely about winning. Fair play and sportsmanship has all but disappeared. You go from one extreme (Maradonna / Henry) to the other (Rammie)! We have also benefitted from two appalling decisions when Tommy Youlden "scored" against Rochdale in 75/6 and last season's "phantom" goal at Watford. I didn't see too many players try and tell the officials that on neither occasion had a goal been scored. So what right do we have to criticise others?

There is too much football on tv. There is too much analysis of games on TV, radio, print and internet. There is too much pressure from supporters both real and plastic for success. The whole ethos and philosophy of the game has been enceremonially shoved into the basement.

At least the Corinthian spirit lives on with the only amateur club playing senior football in Tolworth just off the A3 - Corinthian Casuals - who stand by their beliefs that sportsmanship and fair play are what football is about.

Anyone rember this from the 2002 world cup?



And what happened last night? Manchester City beat Arsenal 3-0 an Wenger refuses to acknowledge Hughes at the end of the game. All over the news on tv and radio.

Maybe I am too idealistic. Perhaps I long for football being played the way it should. But I am reaIistic enough to know that it won't change for the better.

[Dirk Gently]

To a certain extent, yes.

The money and many of the people involved in it have separated it more and more from the supporters - and for me it ought to be all about the match-going supporters, not about the agents, the TV companies, some oil-rich Arab who wants a "trophy-purchase" to brag to people about at OPEC meetings, or about people watching football through a TV screen, no matter what country they're in.

Sadly, the bigger a club gets and the more that money is involved, the more this connection with real match-going supporters gets eroded, so that with the very biggest clubs it hardly exists any more. We're not there yet, thankfully, and even when we were in the PL things didn't get as bad as they might have done.

But I'm in the position (lucky or otherwise!) of being able to have a certain amount of access into the way that football is run, especially at the top end. And I can only describe the feeling as being like opening a box of favourite biscuits and seeing it crawling with maggots - the greed, corruption (open or subtle), lack of ethics and the level of short-term self-interest at some clubs (not RFC!) take my breath away and certainly leave me a bit disillusioned.

[brendywendy]

LOL at falling out of football/our club cos we arent at the top of the league
just lol

[Northern Boy]

Yes, but not because of the cheats; they've always been there.

More because it's become so dull and predictable. What is the best any team in football can hope for; mid-table mediocrity in the Premiership.

Gone are the days when a team like Leeds or Forest could win the second tier title and next season win the top tier title with little more than a good manager and a core group of quality players scouted from the lower divisions.

[loyalroyal4life]

LOL at falling out of football/our club cos we arent at the top of the league
just lol

well what do you expect when most are plastics!!

Football is about the ups as well as the downs!!

[Arnie_Pie]

Gone are the days when a team like Leeds or Forest could win the second tier title and next season win the top tier title with little more than a good manager and a core group of quality players scouted from the lower divisions.

We had a bloody good go in 05/06/07.

[winchester_royal]

About time we had another one of these pathetic threads.

If you don't like football any more, then fine, but FFS stop using a bloody messageboard about football.

[brendywendy]

Yes, but not because of the cheats; they've always been there.

More because it's become so dull and predictable. What is the best any team in football can hope for; mid-table mediocrity in the Premiership.

Gone are the days when a team like Leeds or Forest could win the second tier title and next season win the top tier title with little more than a good manager and a core group of quality players scouted from the lower divisions.

who cares about the premiere league

[Great Knolly]

One of FIFA's few redeeming features is their refusal to roll over in the face of all the media pressure to bring in video replays.
1 ref and 2 linesman should remain the norm for football at all levels. By all means use video evidence to retrospectively punish players after the game. In fact, this should happen more often for diving and off-the-ball thuggery etc. But during the game, leave it to the ref.

[Seal]

I would like to know when is the great era of football that all the moaners on this thread pine for?

2000 - Football reflects the world as globalisation takes hold. More money than ever. Greatest players in the world in the Premier League. Too greater divide between the haves and the have nots. Best Reading side in history.
1990s - The birth of modern football and the Premier League. Arguably not that different to now, same issues just less extreme. Rich English businessman instead of Arab ones. Man U still winning everything. Baddiel and Skinner. Reading range from rubbish to pretty good.
1980s - People die on the terraces. Lowest attendances in history of English football. Banned from Europe. Liverpool and Everton dominate. League too predictable. Reading rubbish.
1970s - England rubbish - miss consecutive world cups in 74 & 78. Attritional football. Terrace violence. Flares. Reading rubbish.
1960s - England win world cup. Reading rubbish. Barely anyone moaning on this thread alive.
1950s - Hmmm struggling now. Stanley Matthews? Real Madrid tasty.
1940s - Everyone rubbish as busy fighting a world war.

So it's seems like a toss up between the 1960s (when at best people on here were in nappies - with one or two exceptions), or the 1990s. And were the 1990s really that different to now?

Live for the moment. Make the best of it, don't harp back for a golden era which arguably does actually exist. Or alternatively...don't go!

[Northern Boy]

Yes, but not because of the cheats; they've always been there.

More because it's become so dull and predictable. What is the best any team in football can hope for; mid-table mediocrity in the Premiership.

Gone are the days when a team like Leeds or Forest could win the second tier title and next season win the top tier title with little more than a good manager and a core group of quality players scouted from the lower divisions.

who cares about the premiere league

Well thats really the point isn't it; the "purpose" of Reading is to win promotion from the Championship to the Premier League. The Premier League is currently shit. Thus there is less point in watching Reading.

[brendywendy]

nope, i like football, cos i like watching football, and i watch RFC cos i like RFC
what division is irrelephant
success is a bonus, but essentially irrelephant
its a laugh, and the roller coaster rides what its all about- i "enjoy" the gallows humour and whingeing almost as much as i do the gloating and success of the "glory days"


Bah! to you and your newfangled football manager/soccer AM view of the game

[papereyes]

LOL at falling out of football/our club cos we arent at the top of the league
just lol

I genuinely think its more than that.

In terms of Reading, for me, its how we've gone about the last 2, 3 years and how we went from a team that always seemed to look upwards (from 2000 to around January 2007) to one that, quite frankly, didn't. I stopped caring as much somewhere in that second Premiership season, when it was clear that we couldn't fight our way out of trouble and we couldn't play our way out of trouble.

And were the 1990s really that different to now?

I think there's one big difference. In the 1990s, we aspired. We could make it, we could move up a level, we could punch above our weight.

Now, we've been there and was it frankly worth it? And all those doubts we'd harboured about the Premiership and whether it was worth the hype all came tumbling in and all that success, in the cold light of day, felt slightly tainted. Because we'd kind of let ourselves down in that second season - players who'd the season before played so hard for a team looked at the next rung above and thought they were better off there. Players who we'd picked from non-league or the lowest divisions decided they were too big for us.

I've got other things on my plate - I'm playing every Saturday up in Manchester and 90 minutes chasing around some gobby shite from Salford and giving him a posh kicking is far more fun that watching Reading lump another high ball into the box and playing "Guess where the header will end up this time" ...

[brendywendy]

or have you just grown up and got all old and that?

[Smoking Kills Dancing Doe]

It's the constant media spotlight killing the game.

The Henry handball sums up all wrong. Not the hand ball, that's all happened before and will again but the aftermarth. Hours and hours of coverage, debate between idiots who know nothing and the just pathetic reaction of the Irish FA.

I can only enjoy football at a ground ignoring all those around me or watching the tv on mute.

[facaldaqui]

No. Football was my first love; it will be my last.